February 15, 2018
Toowoomba Regional Council has voted to join Tourism Darling Downs, a breakaway tourism group established last year by Wellcamp Airport developer John Wagner.
At the Council’s committee meeting on Wednesday, Councillors voted almost unanimously to take a $10,000 annual membership with the new tourism group.
The move was opposed by Cr Bill Cahill, who was critical of the lack of key performance indicators attached to the membership.
“In the recommendation, given the length of the potential benefits, I don’t see any performance indicators,” Cr Cahill said.
Cr Cahill reminded fellow councillors the money came from ratepayers and merited critical assessment.
However Mayor Paul Antonio said the council joining Tourism Darling Downs as well as maintaining its membership of the Southern Queensland Country Regional Tourism Board could offer an opportunity to get both groups to work together.
He said he had attended a recent Tourism Darling Downs function at Gabbinar Homestead and found there was a real enthusiasm for the group amongst tourism operators.
“The important part about this $10,000 we’re putting on the table is not about KPIs or anything like that,” he said.
“It’s about the fact that we are now fully engaged – we ought to all be working together in the tourism space and that’s the issue that I’m concerned about.
“We have two bodies who seem to be not on the same page at times.
“They need to brought onto the same page and that may well be the role we can play.”
In the South Burnett, the Council voted last year to discontinue its membership of Southern Queensland Country, but it has made no approaches to join the new Visit South Burnett local tourism organisation.
Instead, it has funnelled the $60,000 a year the Council formerly paid Southern Queensland Country into the Discover South Burnett website, which is run by the Council’s Economic Development Unit.
Last August, Economic Development Officer Craig Tunley’s two-page, three-year Economic Development Plan was adopted by the Council.
The plan identified a 300 per cent increase in tourism revenues and the creation of 3000 new jobs in the region by 2020 as targets.
Tourism is currently estimated to generate as much as $84 million per year for the South Burnett.
